Any woman in tech could be a false-accusing feminist honey trap, addled open source guru warns

I’ve been tracking misogynistic ridiculousness on this blog for five years, but I’m not sure I ‘ve ever run across anything quite as ridiculous as this.

A prominent Open Source guru, Eric Raymond, is warning tech dudes to be extra super duper careful around their female colleagues, because any one of them could turn out to be a secret feminist “honey trap” aiming to frame men in tech with false allegations of harassment or rape.

His anonymous source warned him that it was no longer safe for men in tech to mentor women, or even be in the same room with them. “I’m super careful about honey traps,” the source wrote.

For a while, that’s how the Ada Initiative was trying to pre-generate outrage and collect scalps.

That’s right; according to this mysterious source the now-defunct Ada Initiative wasn’t actually a non-profit trying to bring more women into the open source world; it was a secret army of false-accusing honey-trap sex commandos, or something.

“The MO was to get alone with the target, and then immediately after cry ‘attempted sexual assault,'” the source wrote, adding that these devious sex harpies disguised as female programmers had already “made multiple runs” at Linux creator Linus Torvalds.

Naturally, faced with a set of outlandish accusations offered with zero proof, Raymond did what any rational, skeptical, scientifically minded man would do: he posted them on his blog and warned men that even being in the general vicinity of a woman at a tech conference was like playing with a loaded false accusation gun, or something.

[I]f you are any kind of open-source leader or senior figure who is male, do not be alone with any female, ever, at a technical conference. Try to avoid even being alone, ever, because there is a chance that a “women in tech” advocacy group is going to try to collect your scalp.

He expressed outrage at the alleged attempts to sully Torvalds’ name.

If my source is to be believed (and I have found him both well-informed and completely trustworthy in the past) this was not a series of misunderstandings, it was a deliberately planned and persistent campaign to frame Linus and feed him to an outrage mob.

I have to see it as an an attempt to smear and de-legitimize the Linux community (and, by extension, the entire open-source community) in order to render it politically pliable.

Will those sexy feminazi sex hyenas stop at nothing?

Linus hasn’t spoken out about this; I can think of several plausible and good reasons for that.

Apparently “because it’s not true” isn’t one that Raymond thought of.

Even though “the Ada Initiative shut down earlier this year,” Raymond went on warn that the danger will likely persist as long as evil SJWs live and breathe.

[T]his report is consistent with reports of SJW dezinformatsiya tactics from elsewhere and I think it would be safest to assume that they are being replicated by other women-in-tech groups.

And any women who are unhappy that they are being lumped in with these devious honey traps can go fuck themselves, because you ladies brought all this on yourself with your talk of rape culture and all that. And yes, he uses the word “ladies.”

Don’t like that, ladies? Tough. You were just fine with collective guilt when the shoe was on the other foot. Enjoy your turn!

Oh, and then Raymond says that in light of this irrefutable evidence of feminazi infiltration conspiracy theory utterly lacking in proof of any kind and frankly ludicrous to boot, he’s going to apply the skepticism he should have shown his mysterious source’s wild tale to actual accusations of sexual assault leveled at men in tech.

Naturally, the extended manosphere is abuzz with talk of this vast sexy conspiracy. Breitbart Tech breathlessly reported that “FEMINISTS ARE TRYING TO FRAME LINUS TORVALDS FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT, CLAIMS OPEN SOURCE INDUSTRY VETERAN.”

“If true,” Breitbart’s Allum Bokhari declared,

these claims will rock the world of software development, not to mention the wider tech community, which is suffering under the yoke of diversity campaigners levelling bogus charges of sexism at companies and individuals and pestering companies to improve their diversity credentials.

Discontent at the behaviour of feminists in tech has already been spreading in the open source community thanks to the feminist-led introduction of controversial codes of conduct for developers on some open source projects. But these new claims elevate feminists in tech from the controversial to the potentially criminal.

“If true,” claims that monkeys are flying out of my butt would rock the world of monkeys, not to mention the wider butt community.

Concluding his article, Bokhari wonders why

other tech news outlets – normally champing at the bit to report on diversity issues – have so far been curiously silent on this story. Breitbart Tech is, thus far, the exception.

Maybe because these tech news outlets prefer to write about, you know, tech news and not the fever dreams of misogynistic conspiracy theorists?

And people wonder why women don’t feel welcome in tech? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that tech bigwigs like Raymond literally think every woman in their general vicinity is a potential “honey trap” out to steal his “scalp” if not his precious bodily fluids.

Comments

Bina — I’ve seriously considered buying Darwin crocs cuz I’m sure as shit not getting him a lady tortoise! Male tortoises can be insistent, to the point that housing any combo besides all females is risking injury and infection when they start fighting over mating. These guys seriously remind me of tortoises, which is saying something since the turtle family harks back to the dinosaurs and while they’ve changed more than crocodiles, they haven’t changed all that much, and they literally have a reptile brain. We’ve spend millions of years building off that reptile brain to arrive at the higher order functions like inhibitions and self control, the MRA red pill crowd would rather claim they can’t be expected to behave more like humans than reptiles, and then say feminists are the ones who hate men!

All in all, I prefer the tortoises. I can outrun them easily if I have to. And they all look like they were born old, which in a way they were…

These dudes, though, I swear…they act as though having frontal lobes were only a matter of convenience, to be dropped as soon as that ol’ reptilian hindbrain (directly connected to the cock, no doubt) squawks up. YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH FUCKING WAYS, GUYS. If you’re going to claim that your frontal lobes and intellect are superior to those of women, then fucking ACT like it. Otherwise, sit down, shut up, and accept equality…and all its sexual inconveniences, too.

@Jo
“clarify that I agree with those upthread saying that linking Linus with sexual harassment is playing right into ESR’s hands”
That’s my take on it too. As much as Linus is a dick to the kernel devs, I’ve never heard even the slightest whisper of him hitting on women, whereas ESR is infamously creepy, both online & in person.
(And FWIW, he eventually did pass my comments through moderation, although they were stuck there for quite a while – many supportive comments were published while mine was in limbo – presumably until he’d come up with responses to them.)

shadrach said “So, just to make sure I’m not missing anything, he’s giving men in tech the same advice that male teachers are given, for the same reasons? Yeah, it must suck if you are a woman who would never do such a thing, but if one single bad actor can effectively ruin your life and career, why *wouldn’t* you behave in a fashion so as to prevent being in a situation where it could even come up?”

shadrach, you and I must live in different worlds. First off, I used to volunteer with kids. All the adults — male and female — had to be fingerprinted. All the adults — male and female — were told not to close the door if they were alone with a kid and not to frontal-hug kids. It protected us and it protected them (mostly them).

Second, HR is toothless. I have at least one friend (people don’t like to talk about this publicly) who left her job at a tech company because a coworker kept on sexually harassing her and HR refused to do anything about it. She complained multiple times, other people complained (he was harassing other women as well), and they said “yeah, we can’t do anything about it.”

Third, women are more afraid of being sexually assaulted by men in the office as men are afraid of being accused of sexual assault. If you’re sexually assaulted or harassed and complain to HR, HR can’t do anything without proof. You can’t sue without proof either. One of my friends had his employer flat-out tell him that he’d get fired if his co-workers had a problem with him coming out. Totally illegal — but my friend can’t sue if he gets fired. He has no proof — there were no witnesses to the conversation, so he has no case. He also has little money for a lawyer — his employer has plenty of money for lawyers. So he’s job-hunting.

General advice, though: if you’re a guy working with a lone female colleague, don’t close the door to the room unless you really need to. If you do, sit across the conference table from her so that there’s some space between you. It makes both people feel safer. It’s also more productive.

Linus does practice ‘management by insult’ and has said some tone deaf stuff, but that’s a long way from being a harasser.

Where I live and where he came from — Finland — we call it “management by perkele” (although Swedes claim to have invented the term, yea yeah whatevs, surströmmings. ;)). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_perkele (Linus Torvalds mentioned as an example.)

(Also, it bears to mention that women are allowed to curse as well, without this behavior somehow lowering the social status and standing as it might do elsewhere.)

In a practical sense, the brain-cock pathway prolly does bypass the frontal lobe — it’s one of the Four F’s the limbic system is in charge of. Feeding, fleeing, fighting, and watch your professors squirm to avoid saying fucking. Now, the ability to act, or not, on whatever got your genitals interested, that one is frontal lobe territory. So I guess they’re saying they have a much more developed frontal lobe that does the logic of STEM, but the moment their limbic system goes into gear they revert to the hindbrain? Dear gods I hope they never drop a test tube, no conscious control over flight or fight must be a nightmare!

Which then leads to — if they see cake do they shove their face into it, or use a fork like the rest of us? I mean, it follows that if seeing a lady makes them revert to reptile brain, then seeing food should too.

*checks finger* hey, I’m finally fully healed from when someone decided to taste test me! Because that’s how reptiles handle things that might be food, taste test! Humans outgrow that somewhere around three years old, how can someone who must taste everything ever work in a lab? They’ll cause mass chaos and deaths when they poison themselves!

@History Nerd Being “clueless about women’s issues” is the least of Stallman’s flaws. He is notorious amongst conference organizers for his wandering eyes and hands and for inappropriate behaviour towards female staff.

Being “clueless about women’s issues” is the least of Stallman’s flaws. He is notorious amongst conference organizers for his wandering eyes and hands and for inappropriate behaviour towards female staff.

@Newt: “…not to mention his list of requirements before he’ll even attend:”
Given that RMS has been earning his living via public speaking for a couple of decades, & speaking as someone who’s had to do travel like that as part of their that job themself, that’s actually a remarkably Spartan set of requirements, & is admirably clear, which makes it way easier for the organisers for an event, as well as cheap. If you think that sounds picky, ask yourself how /you’d/ feel about spending every day of your working year in transit, or in a hotel room, far away from home.
Not to pick on you at all, Newt, because I used to think the same way, but until you’ve spent a few solid weeks living out of a suitcase yourself, you wouldn’t believe how tiring & soul-destroying that kind of lifestyle is. I used to find that for every two weeks I spent travelling for work, it took me about a month back home to recover.

@davidgerard
Am old friend of mine hosted him one time, & it was… educational. As he described it to me, it was a case of having a house guest who’d grown up basically squatting in the lab on campus, & performing his ablutions every now & then with a sink & a washcloth. On the bright side, I gather that he’s a very inexpensive guest.

@Nop: Fair enough, I’ve not got much for comparison here. The combination of a long introduction to GNU philosophy with detailed pet preferences seemed bizarre, but could just be the accumulation of many lessons learned the hard way.

It is bad advice for the same reason ‘always stay indoors because an airplane flying somewhere above you might void its septic tank and you will be killed by frozen poo’.. just because something is possible within the laws of physics does not mean it has a sufficiently high probability of happening to justify altering your behavior to the detriment of yourself and others.

Aww, I thought the pet part was sweet. If you’real looking for a place to crash for a night, then “I am allergic to cats, but like friendly ones” is totally needed info, as is “please make sense your dog doesn’t jump and bark” (which, really, is common curtesy), and “parrots are awesome, but please don’t buy one to surprise me [small bit on wild caught pets]” idk, may seem overboard? My clown loaches are wild caught, and Puff almost certainly is and Darwin I suspect is — it is an ethical dilemma I’m not shy about discussing and if I had any reason to suspect someone might acquire a tortoise to surprise me I’d say the same thing.

On that note, and since the holidays are approaching, don’t buy kids animals, even (perhaps especially) gold fish unless you’re their parent/guardian and willing to care for it. It isn’t a cool surprise after a month, and it isn’t fair to the critters. And anyone looking to get goldfish — they live for decades and get the size of softballs, are little shit machines that require a proper tank with a good filter, and you can’t house them with most other fish due to tempature requirements (no heater for goldfish, a thing most other fish aren’t okay with). Get a beta if you want a small easy to care for fish, do frequent water changes or get a decent filter, and enjoy your much prettier pet!

If you said that when he was in the room, he’d probably give you a giant bear hug, because people who want to buy goldfish ‘because they’re starter pets’ or come in and try to buy a ‘simple goldfish bowl’ make him kind angry on his gold-fishies behalfs.

Kat, me too, I’m hoping he’s just got some minor thing going on like a cold or something, cuz we can’t have one asshole managing to harass our Dark Lord away!

Contrapangloss — I’ve got five tanks, no goldfish cuz my largest is 55g and that’d be really pushing it for full grown goldfish. Don’t get me started on the proper care of our aquatic friends, I will go on all day! Though I will say — anyone looking at filters, yes, fluvels are worth the cost.

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